One of my favorite scenes in the documentary Dig! is when Dandy Warhol’s frontman Courtney Taylor is laying down vocal tracks for the Dandy’s soon-to-be hit “Bohemian Like You.” He wasn’t doing anything particularly annoying in that scene, just singing his vocal lines, but somehow came off as a total douche and it’s hilarious because he’s oblivious.
In many ways this scene encompasses the golden rule of recording: Everybody looks like a fucking tool when recording vocal tracks.
It’s a fact of life, and just knowing this sad truth can make you 100 times more effective in the studio. Unless you’re Pavarotti, singing the way you do live just isn’t enough in the studio. Recording several different overdubs and harmonies helps, but even THAT isn’t enough. Alot of times we’ll record for hours and hours testing different voices with different mics until we find a sound that we like. But here’s the tricky part: the vocals that sound good in the mix, usually sound like shit when they’re being recorded.
Case in point: I call it the Axl Rose-meets-Chicken Lady-meets-Diane Rehm (or Axl Rehm®) voice. In addition to about six other go-to voices, singing in the Axl Rehm® is part of my vocal duty for each song that I am featured on on the upcoming album. This means, going into the studio to record my vocal takes is not as simple as going in and singing the way I do live. That is definitely part of it. But an even bigger part is where Ryan (our producer) yells at me to “Sing it in your screamy voice!”, “Sing it your Axl voice!!” “Sing it in your Dire Straits voice!!!” I cry deeply, then follow suit.
The process is harsh on the ears:
But the results are worth it:
Notice how little of that shit is actually in there! It’s added in toward the end for dramatic effect. The track sounds more “barbershop quartet” than “Appetite for Destruction” but I guess we would have never figured that out if we all just clammed up in the studio. It really is worth it to experiment with different vocal sounds. Go balls deep and act like a total spazz when the mic is on and the spacebar has been pressed. SHAME IS FOR THE WEAK!
By the way, Ryan told me that I’m letting his mixing secrets out into the world by releasing just the vocal tracks. I guess that’s somewhat valuable to studio nerds. I’d be really impressed if someone took that track and made something with it.
Dammit, don’t give away my secrets!
Seriously, I think people will be surprised by how distorted Steve’s vocals sound here, but in the full mix you can’t even hear the distortion; it just sounds punchy and cuts through. So, Secret #1 = It doesn’t matter what is sounds like solo’d, it only matters what it sounds like mixed in with everything else.
Secret #2 = Get your singers to do funny voices because even if they don’t end up in the final mix you’ll be entertained during the tracking and it’ll make for good blog fodder. Ha!
That a capella track is definitely barbershop quality.
Bahaha! I love it.. personally, I can’t get into a song unless I look like I’m channeling the thunder gods with my fists.
Yeah, that probably looks cool, though! Regardless, no matter how ridiculous it looks, I think it’s probably better than just standing there doing nothing, which is just boring.
Wow, I always wondered what Diane Rehm looks like. Is it the lady on the left?
Always with the redheads!